


Cathedrals

by jamaillith, quigonejinn



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-03 06:35:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1067223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamaillith/pseuds/jamaillith, https://archiveofourown.org/users/quigonejinn/pseuds/quigonejinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Pitfall, after Stacker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cathedrals

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has: 
> 
> 1\. Canon universe Herc/Stacker/Mako where everybody is a consenting adult.  
> 2\. A lot of kink. Like. A lot of intense D/s stuff. 
> 
> If you aren't interested in those things, this is not the fic for you.

**chapter one - hand.**

There are other things in Stacker's quarters: identical blue shirts, identical navy suits with extra trousers for wear. Four dark blue ties and two red ones, plus two weeks of dress socks, neatly rolled and laid out in the drawer. A dress PPDC uniform, untouched and unworn since the end of official funding. Even working with only one good hand, Herc spends ten minutes boxing clothes. Stacker kept his habits from military school. 

...

There are other personal things in Stacker's quarters. Besides the decorations and the tea set from the office, Herc finds an old, well-leafed pocket Japanese dictionary in the nightstand, plus a map of the streets around the Hong Kong Shatterdome, folded and refolded and carried long enough that the paper is soft. There is a framed photo of Stacker and Tamsin standing by the right foot of Coyote Tango, as well as a program from the Choi wedding -- Striker had been in Honolulu, but Herc remembers getting the story from Mako. Tendo wanted a church wedding with Mass; Alison said that she didn't have time to get learn catechism while also building and maintaining armaments to save the world from otherdimensional hellbeasts.

So they compromised. Stacker officiated. 

Herc remembers Mako telling him about it, head angled to the side, eyes bright. Chuck sulked in the background because Max was drooling onto Mako's knee while she scratched the wrinkles behind his ears. 

...

Five weeks after Breach closure, Herc takes on the obligation to clear out Stacker's things because he moves into Stacker's quarters. 

Herc doesn't need direct access to the Jaeger maintenance bay anymore, and Stacker picked his quarters perfectly for someone trying to hold the Corps together -- convenient to the helipad and the office, an easy four minute walk-jog-duck-up-the-stairs to the room used for press conferences. Close by the canteen for food and gym, but out of the way for quiet, and four days into living in Stacks's old quarters, Herc Hansen gets down, carefully reaches under the bed with his good hand, tugs, sits down from the pain that shoots up his right side, then tugs again. Eventually, he drags out a hard-sided case that is almost as long as Herc is tall, and for the first time, he unlocks it with the key that Stacker left on his leather blotter before stepping out to be dressed for Striker Eureka. 

Herc goes through the contents, categorizing, identifying. He finds a tin with photos that he guessed it would be there, but he has never seen it. Herc is a little drunk, but intends to be much, much drunker by the end of the night, so he wedges the tin open and dumps the contents out on the table around a bottle of Scotch. Max looks up at the noise, then goes back to sitting at the door, and Herc doesn't have to be anywhere for eighteen hours. 

The first photo that Herc picks up shows Mako curled up into Herc's chest, her head tucked under her chin, his arm around her. Blue streaks of hair fanned across her cheek. Both of them are fast asleep in the thin light of a morning in Hong Kong. 

There are welt marks across Herc's upper arms and rope burns on Mako's shoulders.

The bed is recognizably Stacker's, as are the composition and framing of the shot.

…

Five days after Breach closure, the world still rocking back on its heels, the idea that the war is over not quite sunk in, Mako and Raleigh and Herc arrive in New York City. 

The PPDC media team laid on a private jet, and the three of them have nearly four hours to themselves before they have to be downstairs for the car to take them to the United Nations General Assembly. Barely enough time to unpack and take shower and get something to eat, not nearly enough to catch up on the sleep that has been evading all three of them since a flock of military helicopters fished Mako and Raleigh out of the Pacific. It's eleven o' clock at night in Hong Kong, but instead of sleeping or eating, Raleigh is up on the roof of the hotel by special dispensation, pacing around the helipad with security following ten steps behind. 

_Raleigh Becket single_ is the most searched string on Google for the past 24 hours. 

But at least media and advance and security are out of the suite, and it's quiet now. There are three bedrooms, four bathrooms, two seating areas, a full dining room that will seat twelve, and a gas fireplace. It's called the Ambassador suite, and the place is bigger than the house Mako lived in on Kageshima, twice as large as any of the PPDC quarters that she grew up in. The main seating area alone has fancy lamps and end tables and a coffee tables and a sectional that seats six, plus two armchairs, one of which has an ottoman and a neatly folded cashmere throw with the Four Seasons monogram. 

But once the blackout curtains are drawn and the deadbolt in place, Mako picks her way over to the couch where Herc is sitting. It's dark. She is barefoot, wearing a tank top and PPDC-issue sweatpants. The only real light is from the television, and instead of sitting on the sectional next to him or pulling the cashmere throw over her and sitting in one of the armchairs, Mako settles on the carpet at his feet, legs tucked up under herself, her cheek against his knee. Eventually, Herc settles his right hand on top of her head.

They watch TV together. It's set to mute, tuned to a 24 hour news channel that buzzes and flashes a silent lightshow into the otherwise dark room. The Kaidanovskys are in Driftsuits. The Wei-Tang Triplets are Crimson Typhoon, using the Thundercloud Formation against what looks like one of the larger Category III's. The city in the background looks like Seoul, rather than Hong Kong, and Mako thinks she can identify the kaiju as MN-21, a Category III that came in under cover of a bad winter storm in '19 and was past Miracle Mile before it could be named. Then, the program swings back to the anchors at their desks before moving onto Stacker and Herc in an Anchorage factory from back when the media was still interested in the story of how the Jaegers were built. Stacker bends down to answer a question, and behind Stacker, in a PPDC dress uniform, hat tucked under one arm, Herc watches sparks from the left arm assembly of Mark-II Jaeger. 

Every hour the news cycles through footage of celebrations from around the world. Children clutching action figures of Coyote Tango and Gipsy Danger. Waving at the camera. Muted mouths forming words, thank you, thank you, in hundreds of different languages, and Mako turns her face into Herc's knee and breathes deeply. He slides his hand down a little further, so that his palm cradles the back of her head, and Mako closes her eyes. She breathes in, then out. All three of them got hair cuts on the plane. Before they go the UN, the should both shower to get the trimmed bits off. Herc slides his hand down to the back of her neck, above her tank top, and Mako breathes in, holds it, and then breathes out. Herc rubs his thumb in a wide circle on the back of her neck, and Mako closes her eyes a little more tightly, turns her face a little more against him. Breathe in. Breathe out. Her shoulders are still steady; her throat doesn't hurt. 

But she opens her eyes when Herc's hand drops away from her head, and she is just in time to see the footage switch to an old clip from an Australian late night chat show. Chuck looks uncomfortable in a three piece suit. A caption appears at the bottom of the screen: TRAGIC SACRIFICE OF JAEGER PILOTS --

Mako grabs the remote control from next to Herc, almost dropping it in the darkness before she shoves her thumb down over the power button. 

The screen blinks out and plunges them into semi-darkness.

…

Five days after Breach closure, Mako kneels in the dark on the carpet of a ten thousand-dollar-per-night hotel suite, kneels with her feet and ankles together as she has been taught and takes Herc's left wrist and guides his fingers to her mouth.

He makes no sound. She can see the side of his face and the outline of the sling from the light of a clock and a strip of New York morning light sneaking through the edge of one of the black out curtains. It's just enough for Mako to tell that he is still staring at the turned-off TV, and his fingertips taste like salt and metal and, faintly, the dry shampoo the stylist rubbed into their scalps on the plane. Mako gently touches the pad of his index finger with her tongue, presses against it, sucks slowly, her lips leaving a wet sheen over his knuckle. Her eyes never leaving his face, she repeats the kiss, counting them off. Index, middle, ring, pinky. Her thumb grazes across his palm as she brings his hand closer, taking his first three fingers into her mouth, tasting the coldness of his skin, feeling knuckles bump against her palate. 

The central heating system kicks in. 

Mako begins to suck, gently, and eventually, with her tongue along the underside of his index finger, Herc breathes out and brings his good hand off the couch and back against her hair. When he takes his hand back away from her head, Mako stands up and wraps her fingers around the wrist attached to the hand attached to the fingers wet from her mouth. They go to the bathroom for Herc's bedroom, and with her free hand, Mako turns on the lights. She doesn't say a word then; she doesn't say a word while she turns, kneels, and lays her right cheek against the side of the tub. She crosses her wrists in the small of her back, just above where her tank top ends. 

Herc pauses, looks around, then turns and heads back into the bedroom. For a moment Mako is alone with the sound of her carefully controlled breaths, the hum of the heating system, the cool marble floor against her knees and the cooler edge of the tub against her cheek. 

When Herc comes back, he has a wire coat hanger tucked under his left arm: from the dry-cleaned dress uniform that media relations hung up for him, and Mako looks from it up to his face. 

“Get in the shower.”

Mako stands, her arms still behind her back. Her newly shorn hair swings forward across her face as she steps up into the tub. 

“Hands on the wall in front of you.”

The bathrooms are done in marble, and she shifts her weight so she’s standing with her legs slightly apart. She can’t quite bend forward so she sinks her shoulders between her arms and rests her forehead against the wall. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Herc tucks the coat hanger into his armpit and pulls the shower head down from the chrome clip on the wall, letting it swing loose while he turns on the faucet. Cold water jets out, soaking Mako’s side. She flinches as it hits her, but doesn’t lift her head or move her hands.

“My clothes,” she says.

Herc reaches out to grab the swinging shower head, his movements tense. He turns the spray away from her for a moment.

“We'll be changing.”

Mako nods. Closes her eyes. 

The water darkens the gray flannel of her tank top and her sweatpants. She pulls in a slow, even breath, then another, this one trembling faintly on the exhale. Herc leaves it on her long enough to soak the fabric down to her knees, then he lets go of the shower head and turns off the water as it clatters against the wall. For a beat, the room is full of the sound of dripping water and their breathing, Herc’s slightly faster than Mako’s. 

Herc reaches out with his good hand and hooks two fingers in the waistband of Mako’s sweatpants. He tugs them down without ceremony, leaving the wet fabric clinging to the backs of her thighs. 

She isn’t wearing underwear. Droplets bead on her skin. Goosebumps rise along the small of her back; the water was very cold. 

Herc untucks the hanger from under his arm and taps it lightly against her hip. Mako turns around and looks at him. He holds it out to her. Slowly, she takes it. Looks down at it, then back up. It still has the paper insert from the dry cleaner in Hong Kong. A smiling cat face.

Mako down again at the hanger, then back up at Herc. 

"Takes too long if I try," he says, and it doesn't sound anything like his normal voice. "You know what to do?"

Mako shakes her head, and Herc realizes that Stacker never used one on her. 

It takes him a moment to make words in any kind of voice, but eventually, he says to take the paper out of the middle. Flatten out the handle. Make it, as much as possible, into a straight line. Mako's hands are wet, so she doesn't get the paper out cleanly, but does tear it away in three big pieces. She hands them to Herc, and Herc puts them in the general direction of the trash can. One piece sticks to his hand, and he rubs it off on the wall while watching Mako try to push the rest of the hanger into shape. She is starting to shiver a little from the cold water, and her sweatpants are shoved halfway down her thighs, the leg higher on one side than the other.

Mako is still fumbling a little with the coat hanger, trying to make it flatter, more of a straight line. 

"That's fine," he says finally, trying to be kind, but Mako flinches more than she did for the cold water. They both pretend not to notice. 

She gives him the coat hanger with both hands. Herc takes it and paces a step back as Mako turns back to the wall. This part, at least, they both know how to do.

Herc lets out a breath, raises the hanger and places it against the middle of her buttocks, parallel to the line of her shoulders. He frowns. Repositions himself.

His first swing is light, barely a swat, a winding up of his arm, once out and back. Still, Mako pushes out a breath when the hanger meets her skin and can’t hide the shudder that rolls up her spine. She moves slightly, returning to position. Herc takes another small step backwards and slightly to one side.

“Ready?”

The coat hanger whistles in the air coming down and cracks against Mako’s wet skin. Her back arches and she utters a small cry that ends with a shivering breath and a single word in Japanese whispered too quietly for Herc to hear. She clenches and unclenches her hands against the shower wall.

“One,” she sighs.

...

Afterwards, Mako is dressed and dry in another tank top and Raleigh’s sweatpants, curled against Herc’s side on the couch, watching some late morning cartoon about a friendly whale. She can’t sit because the last two strokes broke the skin across the backs of her thighs.

...

When Raleigh knocks, she gets up and undoes the deadbolt. His cheeks are red from walking on the roof in the cold. 

Media Relations orders room service lunch.

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title and chapter headings from [Saying Your Names](http://yupnet.org/siken/2008/03/19/saying-your-names/) by Richard Siken.


End file.
